hardy tropical plants

Easy tropicals are at blakemere,well worth a visit and not too far from you,
http://www.uz-garden-studios.co.uk/news.asp

 

thanks to all for the info.

I've just got back from singapore and i fell in love with the tropial gardens there.
I saw this small palm tree with slender yellow leaves with a green line in the middle. They were not that big and they grew in shade. Does anyone know the name of this plant?

Also I had a chat with one of the gardeners there and he said that all he does is put a some compost over the planted area after about a month he has planted stuff.
Is there any procedure I should follow?

thanks again

 

It could be a form of cordyline? any pictures?

 

Dracaena?

 

sorry no pic.

it was about 20 40 cm tall, more of a shrub than a tree.

 

Not a type of Yucca, was it GL? Adam�s Needle(Yucca filamentosa) has the green and yellow the wrong way round as you describe, but maybe somewhere to start?

http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/hgic1077.htm

BTW - if anyone is interested, I went down to the new Easy Tropicals nursey on Saturday. Got some really nice stuff including the most wonderful oleander bushes for only �£30 - not hardy, but am going to overwinter it in the greenhouse and hope for the best!! It was just too good to leave there for that price! :D

 

Do give aroids a try!
S
amorphophallus ( yes, i think its a rather naughty name!) are gre

 

Oops - clicked the wrong key there! - as i was saying, they are great fun plants. Try the "voodoo lily" first as a taster of what they are like. They are hardy here in the south and i gather elsewhere too.They flower with a huge spathe mottled red/yellow and have a really foul smell to attract flies but after that they have tropical and very unusual leaves.
Look on ebay for them under aroid or amorphophallus. You need to look out for a "sauromatum" or "tyohonium" - like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SAUROMATUM-GUTTATUM-hardy-Voodoo-lily-3-offsets_W0QQitemZ170208542439QQcmdZViewItem

However i wouldnt buy and "offset"- look for a bulb.
They are great fun and will flower with no water or soil. Then you can pop them in the garden about 6 inches down and they will give the wonderful leaves. They do prefer shade.
Hope this helps

 

Amorpho - Greek - 'twisted'.

phallus - Greek - but I forget what it means.

 

Hi Dave, I have a couple of smallish oleanders which have spent the winter outside in pots with some overhead protection from trees. They have taken temps to about -6 several times and have sailed though with no ill effects.

Mine will be planted out this year and left to fend for themselves.

 

*sniggers at the back of the class*

 

Hi Gaz - yeh, I tell a lie about the hardiness. Paul at ET reckoned they would probably make it through at about -5 so your -6 would be about right. I don't know whether to take the risk though, and he thinks it would be pretty happy in a container. Can't wait to get it out on the patio later in the summer - although from reading all the scary stories about its poisonous properties, I might not want to touch it!! :eek: :eek:

 

Just to chip in, I've never managed to overwinter an oleander outside in an unprotected position.
As I've always said -5C here is very different from a one off -5 in the Med.
When one did survive a winter it was so late getting going again that it never flowered the following summer.
Having said that I believe the single flowered ones are hardier than the doubles which I've tried.

 

The main problem, when they say 'it will withstand -x0c' is that they don't say for how long. Pete is a bit more cautious than me but even I (who have probably lost more plants than Pete) do realise that most plants can't sustain a minimum temperature for too long.